


The Lion Tamer and The Fortune Teller

by morganalegay



Category: Original Work
Genre: Animal Training, Circus, Enemies to Friends, F/F, Fortune Telling, Original Character(s), lion taming, maybe eventually enemies to friends to lovers if i do anything more with her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 04:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21469858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganalegay/pseuds/morganalegay
Summary: “ I’m not afraid of karma, and I’m definitely not afraid of any stuck up city boys.”“Men are dangerous.”“Men,” Kitty said “are no more dangerous than my cats.” Kitty was tired of this argument with Mysteria. Every night she batted her eyelashes at a man from the crowd- young and naive, with money to spare. Every night she left with him for a drink, and every night she returned a few hours later with his wallet. She was confident that the consequences would never catch up with her, and if they did by some miracle, she knew she could talk herself out of trouble. It was easy money, and she told herself that the men paid for her well for her company. They would never find another woman like her, she told herself. Even if it was just drinks she strived to make an impression. She left them wondering ‘if she could tame lions, what could she not do?’
Kudos: 1





	The Lion Tamer and The Fortune Teller

“Katherine, please. You’re a woman, you’re not a girl anymore. Don’t you think it’s time for you to find a husband?” Kitty had puffed out her cheeks.  
“I’m not interested in that. Why would I need to be married when I may be just as happy alone?”  
She had known what her mother would say. There was no place in the world for a woman alone. But here she was, alone. She had had no other choice. Her mother had lied to her. Her mother had pretended to be the morally upright woman that she tried time and time again to make Kitty into, but that was not what she was.  
And here Kitty was, following in her footsteps.  
Her mother and her twin sister had found themselves with a traveling circus, performing as the angels of life and death. She had fallen in love- mistakenly- with a boy from a town that they stayed a few nights in. Kitty was born believing that her father had died of tuberculosis. The truth was that he had run away. He wanted a girl for the night and when he was offered a daughter in return he left town. Kitty didn’t blame him. She wouldn’t have blamed her mother, if she had told her the truth. Her mother had spent years playing the saint, and years pretending Kitty was the devil.  
Kitty held a poster rolled up in her fist, colors running and fading with sweat and dirt. Her hand was stained red and yellow but she was close. She didn’t have a plan, she didn’t have talent. She didn’t have anything but herself and the poster. She didn’t stop to think about whether or not this was a good idea.  
★★★★★

“Please let me come with you.” She was only 17 years old. She was old enough for a husband and old enough for a child, but she was here. She was so close.  
“What can you do for us?” The men were leering at her but she ignored them.  
“Nothing.” They burst out laughing. At least they were entertained.  
“She’s bold.” She straightened her shoulders and stared the men down.  
“Let me ride the train. Let me follow the circus.” It was not a question, the way that she said it. She spent nights and early mornings in bars with the men, drinking, playing darts and cards. If there was anything she knew how to do, it was bluff. And if there was anywhere she knew she wanted to be, it was on the train. She would do whatever it took to get there.

★★★★★

“Why do you want this?” The ringmaster was a small man with a handlebar moustache Kitty had no idea that the picture on the poster was a drawing of him and not a crude caricature of what the artist imagined a ringmaster would look like. He smelled like alcohol, and his clothes were in various states of disarray.  
“It seemed like the right thing to do.”  
“Tell me why. We do not want you to be a part of our family, if you are going to run and jump at the next chance of higher pay. Loyalty is important to me and my friends.” It was a threat, but Kitty refused to be intimidated.  
“I don’t want to be at home. I don’t want to be someone’s woman. I want to find out who I am when I am alone.” She didn’t want to tell him that she was angry at her mother, and she didn’t want to tell him that her mother was someone that he may have known once. She wanted to be Kitty, not Katherine.  
“You can start by cleaning cages. Dogs, monkeys, lions. Then you can clean up after the people. Then I’ll come to you. When you’re ready.” 

★★★★★

Kitty laid awake on her straw bed, her head pounding and her leg and arm on fire. She took a gulp of whiskey from the bedside table next to her. She could barely move and her whole body ached like she had been shot from a cannon ball. She might as well have been. Millie, the bearded woman, sat next to her on a trunk holding her hand gently.  
“How are you doing today?” Kitty closed her eyes tightly.  
“It hurts still. And probably will for a long time.”  
“This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. When you’re working with animals… well…” Millie trailed off. Her red hair hung over her face and she looked almost embarrassed for Kitty. “I’m sure you knew the risks, but something like this happening so soon?”  
“Is Joshua going to be okay?” Millie looked away.  
“Oh god… Oh my god.” Kitty hadn’t had a lot of love for Joshua, but he was the one teaching her how to work with the cats, and he had been kind enough to let her perform in the last show. And now he was dead. Kitty felt like it was her fault. He had warned her about the risk for both of them, bringing her into the show and introducing her to the cats, and she had insisted that he include her anyway. Her heart twinged with guilt.  
“Joshua had been hurt before, Kitty. He knew what he was doing. Some things you just can’t control. Don’t blame yourself.”  
Kitty blamed herself. But she wasn’t as afraid as she should have been. She knew that if she kept doing this, kept taking so many risks, that one day she would die. And she could bet that the cats would be the ones to do it. Her head was throbbing. She felt determined. When she was knocked down, she got back up. 

★★★★★

Kitty felt like it was time for her to begin her own act. The cats trusted her. She trusted them. She had forgiven them for what had happened to Joshua. They were wild animals, after all, and sometimes it seemed like they even missed him. Kitty wondered if they would miss her. She thought they would, she was kinder to them than Joshua was. The whip in her hand was for show, and she had pockets sewn into her skirts that she stuffed full with smoked ham. They rubbed against her sometimes, their faces and teeth grazing her face. She promised the ringmaster that she would be patient and she had been, but she was tired of waiting.  
She knocked on the ringmaster’s door. A girl with curly black hair and brown skin opened it. Kitty had never seen her before, and she assumed she would never see her again. She smiled at Kitty and Kitty nodded at her as she left the train car.  
“How would you feel about moving?” The ringmaster asked.  
“Moving?” Kitty had been sharing a car with three other people since she arrived a year ago. She liked them, but she was tired of being in such close and smelly quarters with so many other people.  
“That girl was Mysteria. She will be traveling with us from now on. She is learned in the mystical arts, and with you and god willing, she will be your new roommate. How do you feel?” Kitty was surprised. She had entered the train car expecting to ask for a chance to perform and she had been distracted.  
“If you let me into the acrobat tent I will live with her.”  
“Kitty.” He sighed. Kitty knew she was fond of her, let her get away with almost anything as long as she kept the cats under control and well fed. He liked her fearlessness and her blunt nature, and she liked that he treated her the same as any man. “I think you may have been mistaken. This is not a negotiation. When someone offers you a favor, it’s only polite to accept.”  
“I figured we might as well both get what we wanted out of this conversation.” Kitty cracked a smile.  
“You haven’t disappointed me yet.” The ringmaster said. Kitty decided to take that as a yes.

★★★★★

“Karma will find you one day, no matter how far you travel.”  
Kitty rolled her eyes. “Oh, give me a break will you, Mysteria. Don’t you remember, you’re traveling with me too.” She kicked off her boots, collapsing onto the trunk near the entrance to their door. Their train car was filled with crystal balls, tarot cards, sage and yards upon yards of flowing fabric. It smelled like incense and like incense disguising the smell of sweat and animals. Mysteria stood at the opposite side of the train car, making a very unladylike expression at Kitty. She was clutching a crystal in her fist, and shaking her head of tight black curls.  
“You will meet someone who will take advantage of you. You will find yourself full of remorse and sorrow, you will wish your sins undone.”  
“You know you don’t have to talk like that around me. Do they not deserve it? Coming here to gawk and stare at us and leave with their grubby handed children and never give us another thought?” Kitty pushed down her stockings, a wallet falling out onto the ground with a soft thud. “ I’m not afraid of karma, and I’m definitely not afraid of any stuck up city boys.”  
“Men are dangerous.”  
“Men,” Kitty said “are no more dangerous than my cats.” Kitty was tired of this argument with Mysteria. Every night she batted her eyelashes at a man from the crowd- young and naive, with money to spare. Every night she left with him for a drink, and every night she returned a few hours later with his wallet. She was confident that the consequences would never catch up with her, and if they did by some miracle, she knew she could talk herself out of trouble. It was easy money, and she told herself that the men paid for her well for her company. They would never find another woman like her, she told herself. Even if it was just drinks she strived to make an impression. She left them wondering ‘if she could tame lions, what could she not do?’  
“I worry, Katherine.”  
“Don’t call me that.” Kitty snapped. Mysteria flinched, turning back into the soft candle-light and drawing the curtain that separated her side of the train car from Kitty’s. Kitty sighed. She and Mysteria bickered nightly. Mysteria did not approve of Kitty’s morals, and Kitty did not approve of Mysteria’s interest in her business.  
Mysteria was an enigma. Everyone in the circus had a mask that they wore in front of the crowd, a different persona- except Mysteria. She wasn’t able to drop her act, no matter what. She refused to. She talked in an accent that sounded vaguely Russian but sometimes it slipped. She talked in riddles even among friends and she seemed guarded- more guarded than anyone Kitty knew. Kitty was sure that she would like Mysteria more if she told the truth. For someone so concerned with karma, Mysteria seemed like she did not have much regard for it herself.  
“Goodnight.” They would be packing up and leaving in two days. At every town they stopped in, Kitty secretly wished that Mysteria would meet someone who caught her eye and stay behind- but she knew that Mysteria would never be happy anywhere else. So they were stuck with each other. 

★★★★★

“We’re thinking of moving you to the big top soon. If you can impress us. We’re just not sure you’re worth it yet.” Kitty turned around so fast that she was sure she had whiplash. The ringmaster was standing behind her with his hands tucked into the pockets of a pair of pants that were too big and too small at the same time. The smell of whiskey and scotch that oozed out of his pores was strong enough to make her drunk from standing too close.  
“When?” She looked at him with a level stare. The only trick of performing was to never let people know just how bad you wanted it. This was her dream. She wanted her and her cats to make it big. If other lion tamers could do it, she didn’t see why she couldn’t. Her cats needed more room and she had already started mapping out new routines.  
“It depends.”  
“On?” She raised an eyebrow. She knew that he was about to tell her something that she wouldn’t like hearing.  
“On whether or not you can make nice with Mysteria.”  
“Good lord, what does she have to do with anything?”  
“We need to try something new. No one else in this country has an act that combines fortune telling and lion taming. And we need money, Kitty. You know that.” For a half a second she guiltily thought about hundreds of wallets she had stashed away, full of pictures of families, identification cards, stamps. And empty of money. She got over it. The wallets were her business. “Putting you in an act together would save space for the acrobats- God knows I’m sick of hearing them complain about not having enough time to practice since your cats have to share a tent with them.” Kitty snorted. “How would you like to lead a headlining show?”  
“Jesus. Okay, I’ll consider it.”  
“Don’t forget, it’s you that's replaceable, not the cats.” 

★★★★★

The next day they were on the road again. Kitty was drinking in Millie’s train car as it roared across the state lines. They weren’t going far, just one state over- but the smell of incense in her train car was more cloying than ever. Mysteria had been crystal ball gazing since she had woken up that morning, and no matter what Kitty said her protests about the incense would be met with complaints of how she was just trying to cover up the stench of her cats.  
“Does she know? She’ll be so upset when she finds out.” Millie leaned forward, staring worriedly at Kitty. One of Kitty’s favorite things about Millie was how non-judgemental she was. She genuinely seemed to love every lost person who found their way with the circus. And Millie always seemed to love Kitty more than almost anyone else.  
“I don’t think so. Otherwise, maybe she would have made an effort to clean up the car.” Kitty scoffed.  
“We’re her family, Kitty. If the ringmaster was thinking about leaving you or I behind, wouldn’t you want to know?”  
Kitty made a face. “I guess so… I’ll tell her eventually, obviously, but shouldn’t she already know?” She tapped her temple sarcastically.  
“Careful, pull any more faces like that and the ringmaster will throw you in with the contortionists.” Millie laughed. “You should talk to her. She’s not really that bad, Kitty.” Kitty’s chest panged with a weird kind of jealousy. She didn’t know Mysteria and Millie had been talking- and without her? She did worry that becoming a bigger act in the circus would push her away from her family. That they would come to resent her.  
“Why couldn’t he have given me you or Ed? At least we can work together without killing each other.”  
“Honey, you know I love you but if you think I am risking myself, the first and only man in the world that I got and our baby to play with your cats…” Kitty scoffed.  
Most people in the circus were afraid of them, and most of the people in the circus were a little afraid of Kitty. She didn’t know how to tell them that the cats couldn’t really kill anyone who crossed her and they wouldn’t believe that they seemed like they preferred smoked meat over fresh, but there wasn’t much she could do. They were wild animals, after all. And as much as Kitty hated to admit it, she didn’t really control them. She could only ask them to trust her, and she had to trust them.  
★★★★★  
There was only an hour until Kitty and Mysteria’s first show together. Kitty’s stomach turned with anxiety. She tried not to bite her nails, but her pinky finger was already chewed down to a stub. The cats were resting in their train car, and Mysteria was back in their room probably trying to compose herself. Kitty knew that she was excited- days before Mysteria could have never imagined herself in the big top, let alone out of her tiny alley packed between the food vendors and the freakshow, and now she here she was as a headlining act. Kitty couldn’t bring herself to consider what would happen if they actually succeeded. How much people would talk about them. The ringmaster was right, no one had ever tried this. Mixing shows was risky enough, but to mix to fundamentally different acts? It was unheard of. They would be the object of envy within their competitors, and they would be legendary with the city people, which meant that Kitty and Mysteria were stuck with each other. Even more than before.  
“Are you ready?” Mysteria was not hiding in their train car. Her dark skin had a tone of ashen gray underneath. She was dressed in knee length dark blue dress with yellow stars, and her hair was left down around her face. Her eyes were overlined with charcoal, and she wore too many necklaces and bangles.  
“That all depends if you are.” Kitty hugged one of her knees to her chest and rested her chin on top. Mysteria didn’t answer. She looked off to the side, biting her lip.  
“I can see something great in our futures, whether it be success or failure I am not sure.” She stopped for a second. “Thank you for allowing me to do this. I know you didn’t want to.”  
“Did your crystal ball tell you that?” Kitty said sardonically.  
“No, you did. You do not like me.” Mysteria cocked her head at Kitty. “That is fine. Everything will change soon.” Kitty nodded without agreeing. She was almost certain that half of the time Mysteria had no idea what she was talking about. She seemed to have better than average intuition, and a lot of trinkets to show for it, but their act together was good. Better than anything Kitty had been able to pull off alone outside of the big top. 

★★★★★

“You! I am sensing great danger in your future. And you! And you!” Kitty stood next to the lions cage, chewing on the inside of her lip. Inside, Mysteria was gesturing wildly to the crowd, and they would be gasping in fear. “Please, let me take a closer look into one of your destinies.” Here she would pull someone from the crowd, reading their future in one of the largest crystal balls she owned. Kitty was impressed. For hours the day before, Mysteria had practiced this dialogue. Her voice was not made for shouting, only for hushed whispers and conspiratorial tones. And scolding Kitty, of course.  
Kitty was dressed as a wealthy woman, furs draped across her shoulders, with a loose fitting dress over a corset and bloomers. She unlocked the lion’s cages, fastening a small leather collar and leash around their necks.  
“No matter, I know the stars are on my side. Would anyone else desire to know their destiny?” That was the cue. Kitty slipped both of the cats a bite of smoked ham, and directed one to either side of her. They fell in line immediately, and she paraded them into the big top. The crowd was mostly young children and their parents. Kitty immediately zeroed in on a news reporter in the front row, with a notebook in hand. The crowd laughed and gasped at the sight of her. She pretended to struggle with their leashes, letting go as they barreled across the dirt floor toward Mysteria. Mysteria gasped in fear, hiding behind the mast holding up the tent.  
“Oh heavens!” Kitty called out, pretending to swoon. The cats stalked toward Mysteria as she tossed treats behind them, as though to distract them.  
“Halt!” Kitty finally shouted, they both froze. “Leave this woman alone, beasts.”  
“Oh, thank you.” Mysteria gushed, moving to run toward Kitty.  
“Stay where you are! You are not safe.” The lions sat before Mysteria, grooming themselves. Kitty knew that they were finally becoming comfortable around Mysteria, but the crowd did not. “They look a bit hungry. Do not let your guard down. We must discover why they were distracted by you so.” Mysteria began to empty her pockets, tossing balls, rope and live birds into the tent. The lions seemed uninterested in everything, yawning sleepily. The crowd laughed.  
“I noticed your crystal ball collection. Perhaps if we gave them something their size to play with they would leave you alone.”  
“Oh, I knew I sensed danger in the future!” The lions ran to Mysteria’s table in the center of the ring, tossing the ball between each other. They ran and leapt through rings set up inside of the tent, growing closer and closer to the crowd with each bound. The crystal ball looked like a marble in their mouths, and Mysteria cracked a smile at Kitty. 

★★★★★

Tonight, for the first night in two years, Kitty had forgotten to make eyes at a man in the crowd. She sat outside of the ringmaster’s train car with Mysteria, each with a dollar in their hands, their payment for their night’s work. Neither of them had ever earned so much before.  
“The crowd loved you.” Kitty admitted sheepishly to Mysteria.  
“Thanks to you.” The longer that they spent together, the more cracks in Mysteria’s persona she was noticing. Her accent started to slip after a long day, and her remarks became less cryptic. Kitty patted her roughly on the back. “I am glad that we know each other.”  
“I’m glad that you haven’t killed me over how much spit is all over your best crystal ball.” Kitty winced at the vaguely hurt look on Mysteria’s face. “I am also glad to know you. I can imagine we will be knowing each other very well after this is over.”  
“If we continue like this, maybe you won’t have to worry about karma.” Mysteria said. She nodded toward the money in Kitty’s palm.  
“Maybe not.”


End file.
